One of the foundational dishes of southern Thai cuisine is Khua Kling, which is served in every restaurant serving southern Thai cuisine in Thailand and throughout the southern part of Thailand.
Khua kling gai is an easy stir-fry made with minced chicken and Southern Thailand style curry paste. Sliced lemongrass, makrut lime leaves, and fresh red chiles enhance the herbal notes of the dish’s aromatic and spicy curry paste while adding some freshness and textural complexity. Fish sauce and sugar are used to season the dish and balance the flavor.
Despite the fact that khua kling is usually stir-fried in a wok, it isn’t made in the same way as, say, a classic Cantonese stir-fry.
Frequently, when people think about stir-frying, they picture restaurant chefs frantically tossing items in a wok over a blazing heat. It’s challenging to replicate that kind of setup at home, but seasoned home cooks know that if you cook your ingredients in a wok on your stove in smaller batches and combine them at the end of cooking, you can get results that are similar. This ensures that the ingredients will be seared but crisp rather than steamed and mushy.
However, to achieve excellent results, stir-fries do not always need to be cooked at extremely high temperatures or with each ingredient being cooked individually. In actuality, wok hei is not at all necessary for stir-fries. Before the invention of gas burners that resembled jet engines, Siamese cooks generally utilized clay burners called Tao, which they would fill with charcoal or wood flames.
A nice illustration of a stir-fry prepared over medium heat is Khua kling. Khua, which in Thai means “to dry roast,” alludes to the fact that the end result should be a dish that is mostly dry and devoid of any sauce.
The curry paste and the protein used in the meal are effectively bound together by the cooking process, which involves drying out the components while stirring and tossing frequently to prevent burning. The curry paste and chicken are cooked together and constantly stirred with a wok spatula, which is used to scrape and move the contents of the wok while it chops through them. Small amounts of water are used to scrape up any sticky bits that form on the pan’s bottom.
Ingredients
- 225g boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 2 tablespoons Southern Thai curry paste
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1/8 teaspoon sugar
- 1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves discarded, tender core thinly sliced
- 10 fresh or frozen makrut lime leaves, thinly sliced
- 2 to 3 fresh Thai chilies, stemmed and cut crosswise on a bias into small bits
- Cooked jasmine rice, for serving
- Khai jiao (Thai omelet), for serving (optional)
Directions
- Chicken thighs should be cut into 1/2-inch-thick slices, which should then be cut crosswise to create 1/2-inch cubes. On a cutting board, distribute the chicken cubes in a uniform layer. Chop the chicken until it is roughly minced this should take about 3 minutes, running the knife across the cutting board continuously, periodically lifting and folding the meat over on the board to reveal bigger parts of meat. Place aside.
- Heat the wok over high heat until it begins to smoke. Swirl in the oil, then add the curry paste and cook, stirring frequently with a wok spatula, for 30 seconds, or until fragrant.
- Add the chicken and cook it, stirring and scraping the bottom of the wok constantly to prevent the chicken from sticking and the curry paste from burning, or until it is thoroughly cooked and all of the moisture it released has evaporated. At this point, the sound will change from a simmer to a sizzle as the chicken starts to fry in oil.
Add the fish sauce and sugar and continue to simmer, swirling and scraping regularly, until completely absorbed, about 30 seconds. Add lemongrass, a third of the makrut lime leaves, and Thai chilies. Remove from heat after fully combining the ingredients by stirring and tossing. Serve right away with cooked jasmine rice and a Thai omelet.